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| Feb. 22, 02:55 EDT |
| Private
health gets push by Harris |
| But
services must be available for all, Premier says |
Theresa
Boyle
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU |
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| TONY CLEMENT: Studied private
sector in England. |
Premier Mike Harris says he welcomes increased privatization of health
care, as long as services are equally available to all Ontarians.
``We've (been) encouraging the private sector to be active in the delivery
of health care,'' Harris said yesterday, adding that private-sector
involvement depended on its ability to do things more efficiently and
provide better service for less money.
``But it's within the context of one-tier (medicare), under the Canada
Health Act, universally available to all our citizens.''
Harris' comments are important because they are the furthest the Premier
has gone in opening the door to increased privatization of Ontario's
health-care system.
In the past, Harris has said he has no plans to privatize health care.
Harris, speaking after the first meeting of his new cabinet, said new
Health Minister Tony Clement recently visited England to investigate the
private sector's role in providing health care.
`We've (been) encouraging
the private sector to be active in the delivery of health care.
But it's within the context of one-tier (medicare), under the
Canada Health Act, universally available to all our citizens.'
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``You can't go around with your head in the sand and look at health care
and the growing advances and new technologies and the escalation in costs
and not be looking at other jurisdictions, including Britain,'' Harris
told reporters.
``We are looking at what roles the private sector can play, (whether) they
can do things more efficiently, more effectively, better service, better
price,'' he said.
Harris said he's committed to one-tier medicare and has no plans to create
a two-tier system that would allow people to pay to jump the queue for
faster and better service.
He said he's committed to the principles of the Canada Health Act, which
ensures comprehensive, universal, portable, accessible health care for all
Canadians.
``We're after a one-tier system, but we do encourage our ministers to look
anywhere around the world for how health care is delivered, to take a look
at pluses and minuses, making sure that we see if there are advantages in
other systems, (and) can we apply them here?'' he said.
Greater private sector involvement doesn't mean the province is moving to
a two-tier system, Harris argued, adding that the private sector has long
been involved in the delivery of health care.
``This has been the practice of the Ontario government for quite some
time, including (under) the Liberals and the NDP,'' he said, noting those
governments privatized hospital food services and laboratory services.
Clement, who recently took over the helm of the $21-billion health
ministry, did little to dispel the impression he's an advocate of two-tier
medicine.
``We've always had situations where we've had both publicly funded and
privately funded, and publicly delivered and privately delivered facets of
health care,'' said Clement. ``That's been the history in Ontario.''
Meantime, Harris said he would welcome a value-for-money audit of the
decision by Cancer Care Ontario to pay a private company to run an
after-hours radiation clinic at Toronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre.
``We have no objection. In fact we like full audits of everything that
we're doing . . . and we consider the auditor an ally,'' he said.
But earlier in the day, the Conservative government used its majority on
the public accounts committee to quash a proposal for Provincial Auditor
Erik Peters to conduct such a probe. The proposal was put forth by Liberal
MPP Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan) who questioned why Cancer Care
Ontario, a government agency, couldn't run an after-hours clinic.
``I am surprised that the government members wouldn't have been interested
in having the auditor do a value-for-money examination of the decision to
run the after-hours program in a private clinic,'' she said.
McLeod, the Liberal health critic, said she wondered how the private
clinic would be staffed given that a shortage of radiation therapists is
the reason the province has used to send patients to the United States for
treatment for almost two years.
``If the solution is there now it should have been there months ago,''
McLeod said.
The public accounts committee also debated a proposal to privatize
critical care air ambulance services, a move NDP MPP Shelley Martel
(Nickel Belt) said would ``compromise'' health care.
A request for proposals for private operators interested in bidding to run
the service states they would face financial penalties if air ambulances
were sent on calls without critical care paramedics aboard.
``You're compromising patient care'' by allowing for the possibility of an
air ambulance to carry a critically ill patient without a critical care
paramedic aboard, Martel charged.
Health ministry spokesperson Fred Rusk said the clause is intended only to
address situations where paramedics are absent from work.
He said there's no point in the government paying for a paramedic service
if it's not going to get it. He insisted patient care would not be
jeopardized. |
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